Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Hassan Ahmad. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hassan, appreciate you joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

I think hard work is the biggest thing that it takes to be successful. You can have all the talent in the world but if you don’t apply that talent by putting in the hard work to achieve it, you won’t see any success or results from it. I’ve been designing for about over 8 years now, but it was just about 3 years ago when major league teams and names started to notice my work. I felt like I already had enough graphic design talent and wasn’t putting in 100% effort towards my work, or showing any improvement which caused me to stay where I’m at without progressing or showing any success towards myself and the others who follow my work. Once I really started putting in extra work and effort to my work, it just naturally showed out to my followers, and eventually big teams and fans. If I feel like a graphic I made is rushed or isn’t better than some of my previous graphics, I won’t post it until it matches that type of graphic, if not better.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers? What can you offer to your clients?

My name’s Hassan Ahmad, I’m a Graphic Designer from Richmond Hill, Ontario. I’m self-taught and got into this industry around 2014. I started out on editing apps and would post these sports edits on my Instagram page and showcase them to my followers. I just continued sharing my artwork with my followers and grew from there. I transitioned to bigger software like Adobe Photoshop in 2017 and started making more complex designs and manipulations. I offer a variety of freelance work and services for clients such as print graphics, birthday graphics, signing graphics, templates, branding identity, logos, and even creative assets. I’d say the biggest thing that sets me apart from others in working with clients is that I come up with additional ideas and styles for them that they can use in their work such as additional colorways, layers, images, and backgrounds. I want to make sure the clients are able to use more than just one version of my graphic rather than sticking with just one version. I’m most proud of being able to just have a consistent clientele and offer my creative services to different people. For any potential clients and followers of mine, just know that I have lots of different styles of work and things to offer! I hope you all enjoy the artwork I create as much as I do.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Great question. I started off by building my audience on social media by following people who had an interest in sports like the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, etc… This was in 2014 when Instagram didn’t have any business pages or any additional resources for this type of thing so that was my main go to, along with following other designers in the community. As time went on though I realized the best way for me to build my audience on social media was to be on more than just Instagram. I had to expand out to Twitter, Tik Tok, Slack Groups, Reddit, Discord Servers, and Linkedin. From there I got to promote my work along with the different platforms I was on, as there was a different audience on each platform that held the same interest (sports). I feel like hashtags and participating in group chats among people within your field help out a lot too. That’s what I do now whenever I want to build up my audience on social media out more. For anyone whose starting to build their social media presence, I would just build up your brand as much as you can on each social platform and promote what you do heavily but also make sure to engage with others while promoting your own stuff.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative for myself would have to be the recognition I get from my followers and audience. I feel like every time I post a graphic to my social channels, it’s like my followers unite and engage heavily with my work which is a really rewarding feeling. I spend a lot of time working on these graphics so I’m just glad it all pays off, and it still helps me out too because I learn new things with every graphic I create in the technical aspect of things. Another big rewarding aspect of being a creative is just the big teams and players that notice your work. I’ve been recognized by teams like the Houston Rockets, Chicago Bulls, San Antonio Spurs, Indiana Pacers, Denver Nuggets, Oklahoma City Thunder, Memphis Grizzlies, Cleveland Cavaliers, and more. To see your work on a page like any of these teams with 500,000-1.5M+ followers still puts me in amazement.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://behance.net/designedbyhassan
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/designedbyhassan
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hassanahmad18/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/designsbyhassan

Image Credit: 
Colin Wouda